To the original question of what put the energy into the original chemical ingredients.
I suppose there could be massive amounts of energy involved if you were to catalogue all the iterations and reactions that nature inputs into the creation of many chemicals.
Then there is the energy of keeping the current conditions that keeps those chemicals in their current form. Not evaporating, oxidizing, etc…
Elements and compounds are the result of much energy moving here and there over time.
So on a gram for gram basis which would release more energy? One gram of neutronium or one gram of Anti-matter? And I guess in theory we can have anti-matter neutronium as well, but maybe thats overkill?
No, overkill would be if we had obbn marry the anti-matter neutronium and then forget their anniversary.
Most workaday modern explosives derive their power from the very high strength of the nitrogen-nitrogen triple bond in N2. There are various reduced nitrogens in them, and when they go off, among other things, all those nitrogens end up as N2, releasing plenty of energy as the N2 triple bond forms. (It also helps that N2 is a gas, which means the energy dumped into the gas molecules gives the explosion momentum, which is helpful for knocking things down.) So you might say that the power of chemical explosives is less because of the high energy of the compounds themselves than the unusually low energy of N2. It’s a very, very stable molecule. (We know this because the bulk of the Earth’s nitrogen sits around as N2, in the atmosphere.)
So the question of where the energy comes from is really: what process turns N2 into much higher energy forms of reduced nitrogen, like NH3 (the most common reduced form)? The most common natural process, believe it or not, is lightning. The extreme high temperature supplies enough energy to cook N2 with O2 and generate various nitrates, which being very water soluble are washed out of the air by rain into the soil. Soil microbes also reduce nitrogen, slowly, through the miracles of enzymes and patience. A lot of the reduced nitrogen is quite effectively recycled, too, as plants absorb and use that excreted by animals. Human beings deliberately reduce nitrogen to form ammonia, nitric acid, and some other forms, mostly used as fertilizer. Explosives for the most part trace their chemical origin back to these various forms of reduced nitrogen. So the answer to the original question: where does the energy come from? is: lightning, megatons of bacteria patiently splitting N2 molecules, and the high temperatures and very high pressures used to reduce nitrogen in the synthesis of ammonia and assorted reduced nitrogen species.
It’s counterintuitive that forming bonds would release energy. Can someone explain how forming chemical bonds (which?) release energy?
It is the rearrangement of multiple less stable (high energy) bonds into more stable (low energy) bonds that releases energy. The N[sub]2[/sub] triple bond is very stable, and the energy stored in it is considerably less than the energy stored in six Nitrogen single bonds to other atoms. So disassembling six single nitrogen bonds from 2 nitrogen atoms and linking those N atoms with a triple bond to make N[sub]2[/sub] releases chemical bond energy as heat. There is extra energy stored if the bond is under stress.
For clarity of discussion (and samples/references),
“Brisance” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrisancemBrisance /brɪˈzɑːns/ is the shattering capability of a high explosive, determined mainly by its detonation pressure. The term can be traced from the French verb “briser” (to break or shatter) ultimately derived from the Celtic word “brissim” (to break).[1] Brisance is of practical importance for determining the effectiveness of an explosion in fragmenting shells, bomb casings, grenades, structures, and the like. The sand crush test and Trauzl lead block test are commonly used to determine the relative brisance in comparison to TNT (which is considered a standard reference for many purposes).
“Relative effectiveness factor” TNT equivalent - Wikipedia
The relative effectiveness factor, or R.E. factor, relates an explosive’s demolition power to that of TNT, in units of the TNT equivalent/kg (TNTe/kg). The R.E. factor is the relative mass of TNT to which an explosive is equivalent; the greater the R.E., the more powerful the explosive.
ETA: Directly as to OP: “Largest artificial non-nuclear explosions” Largest artificial non-nuclear explosions - Wikipedia
Of course, this thread is running on two (at least) tracks: chemical energetics and explosives proper.
Good point. If the only metric of interest is energy per gram, then a blend of hydrogen and oxygen is going to win handily, and under the right conditions it will detonate just like a high explosive. But if you’re looking to break things, you’d rather have a pound of TNT (or any other solid/liquid high explosive) than a pound of H2/O2 gas blend; the former will release its energy with far greater rapidity, due to the higher detonation velocity and the fact that the detonation wave only has to traverse a small block of solid material instead of a large volume of gas.
I have never forgotten this guy, who missed out on a full Darwin Award:Phenomenal Failure
2001 At-Risk Survivor
Unconfirmed by Darwin
(February 2001, Michigan) A 28-year-old demolition worker attempted to commit suicide by washing down nitroglycerine pills with vodka. Normally suicide is not worthy of an At-Risk Survivor, but this man’s failure was exceptional. After swallowing the pills, he tried to explode the nitroglycerine by repeatedly ramming himself into a wall.
He was treated for bruises and released from the hospital… with counselling. cite: 2001 Honorable Mention: Phenomenal Failure
Very minuscule amount of nitroglycerine in the pills/patches. And it’s stabilized (if that amount can even pose a danger) by the other materials in the pills/patches.
The original dynamite was nothing more than nitro in diatomaceous earth.
I’m surprised the overdose didn’t kill him.
Well, my laziness was overcome:
From Wiki “Nitroglycerin (drug)” Nitroglycerin (medication) - Wikipedia
…The medical use of nitroglycerin is for the treatment of angina and heart failure. The chemical nitroglycerin is commonly referred to as “glyceryl trinitrate” or “GTN” in medicine to distinguish it from nitroglycerin as used as an explosive. However, the drug is often referred to as “nitro” colloquially.
[snip]
GTN is a prodrug which must first be denitrated to produce the active metabolite nitric oxide (NO). Nitrates which undergo denitration within the body to produce NO are called nitrovasodilators and their denitration occurs via a variety of mechanisms. The mechanism by which nitrates produce NO is widely disputed
ETA: “prodrug” is a new one on me: Prodrug - Wikipedia –> drug only works after metabolism.
The antimatter, if it has matter to react with, would release thousands of times more energy.
So, what about antimatter neutronium?
The simplest explanation is to consider the reverse reaction, that of breaking chemical bonds. It’s pretty intuitive that it would require energy to break a chemical bond; therefore forming that same chemical bond must release the same amount of energy.
(If this were not true, it would be a violation of the first law of thermodynamics, and would also violate the law of conservation of energy.)
As to your “which” question, the above applies to *all *chemical bonds. In a typical chemical reaction, however, some bonds are being broken and some are being formed, so you have to compare the chemical bond energy of the reactants to that of the products.
Same as regular antimatter, more or less.
Derek Lowe charmingly refers to this compound as FOOF, which both describes its chemical formula and its effect.
Well that’s a relief.
sort of relevant video: 5 of the World’s Most Dangerous Chemicals
A gram-sized black hole would evaporate in less than a nanosecond, releasing all its mass as energy. This would work even in vacuum, unlike the antimatter example. This would be the same amount of energy as released by the antimatter… though some might include the equal amount of energy produced by the matter even though that was not part of the ‘explosive’, in which case it would be half the total energy.
If that gram-sized black hole were made from electrons, and thus had a charge of - 10^27 or so, it would have… quite a bit more energy.